


Only Song I Want to Hear

by akisazame



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-24
Updated: 2010-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-03 04:04:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1730501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akisazame/pseuds/akisazame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rise is having trouble studying, and the silence isn't helping.  Yosuke isn't helping, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Song I Want to Hear

Rain pattered gently on the windows of the Yasogami High library, and it was somehow the loudest sound in the room, compared to the rustling of papers and the occasional quiet whisper from one person to another. Rise didn’t particularly care for studying in the library; she was used to doing homework in her room, surrounded by bright pink walls and gaudy posters of cute boys, with the TV or radio turned up so loud she could barely hear herself thinking about mathematical formulae or parts of English speech. In the library, it was deathly quiet, and she kept focusing on her own breathing without meaning to, until it was the _only_ thing she could focus on and she wasn’t certain that she would continue to breathe if she stopped thinking about it.

She looked up from her chemistry textbook, casting a covert sideways glance at Yosuke. She’d asked Souji-senpai to study with her at first, but he’d said something about having to work at some kind of day care today. Then Yosuke had barged into the conversation, all smiles and bravado, and said that he was going to study in the library this afternoon anyway so of _course_ Rise was more than welcome to tag along. Any other time, she would have said no; after all, studying had just been a pretense to get Souji to spend a little time with her. But Souji had smiled and said it sounded like a great idea, and she couldn’t bring herself to disagree. Yeah, it _did_ sound like a good idea on the surface. But it wasn’t what she _wanted_.

Yosuke had his math book out, but he wasn’t reading or working out problems or anything. He had his headphones on, probably turned up pretty loud, but she couldn’t hear anything at all. This whole afternoon was such a drag, such a disaster. She folded her arms on top of her textbook and gave a loud, dramatic sigh as she put her head down on them.

That got Yosuke’s attention, probably more from the movement than the sound. He nudged one headphone off and turned to look at her curiously. “Something wrong, Rise-chan?”

_Of course something’s wrong, you idiot._ She didn’t say that. She _wanted_ to, but didn’t. “Just tired, I guess.” Her voice was too loud, she realized; at least one other student was looking at her with a sour, annoyed expression. Well, screw you too, jerk. “Too quiet in here. Makes me sleepy.”

“I hear that. Or don’t, as the case may be.” Yosuke grinned and tapped the headphone that was still on his ear.

Rise pouted and sighed loudly again, getting another angry stare from the kid in the corner. “That’s the _problem_ ,” she said dramatically, sweeping her gaze towards the rain-streaked window. “It’s so _quiet_ in here and you’ve got your _headphones_ and...” _...you’re not paying any attention to_ me _,_ was how that sentence was meant to end. She managed to cut herself off just in time. This wouldn’t have been a problem if _Souji_ were here. _Souji_ would pay attention to her, gently explain all the different chemical compounds she was having trouble memorizing, maybe sneak her a little kiss behind the book when no one was looking. This was just... well. It wasn’t _that_.

The room fell silent again, the rain on the windows drowning everything out. In that silence, Rise’s ears managed to pick up a tiny musical sound -- was it coming from Yosuke’s headphones? Now that they weren’t sealed against his ears, she could almost hear something strangely familiar. But... no way...

She uncoiled herself and reached out for Yosuke’s headphones in one fluid motion, before he had time to realize what she was doing. He was fast in the TV world, but she was quicker out here in reality, without the extra speed that Susano-o lent to him. She was trained in eight types of dance, after all. He tried to grab at the headphones, her hands, anything, but it was no use; she leaned way over in her chair, just out of his reach, as far as the headphones’ cord would let her. She gave him one triumphant smirk before sliding the headphones over her ears.

Oh. _Oh._

She’d heard the song thousands of times, sung it hundreds, performed it a few dozen. It was _her_ \-- or, rather, _Risette_ , because those two things were strangely separate in her mind now. The song was one of her more popular ones, the follow-up to her first big hit single, though it didn’t get much radio play anymore. Hearing it now, on Yosuke’s high-quality headphones, she found a lot of things to hate about it: she could hear the note she’d always sung flat, that they’d finally had to auto-tune away; the synth was too loud during the bridge, drowning her out almost completely; the key change at the end was all wrong and made her sound like a squeaky prepubescent child. Which was exactly what she _had_ been, come to think of it. She finally couldn’t listen anymore and took the headphones back off, slowly handing them back to Yosuke, feeling as embarrassed as he looked.

He took them back from her, resting them around his neck rather than over his ears. His hands fumbled in his pocked for his MP3 player, and she idly wondered why he hadn’t done that in the first place, before she’d had a chance to hear. Before she’d managed to humiliate both of them.

“T-to tell the truth, I was a pretty big fan,” Yosuke managed in a small voice. His face was red and he couldn’t quite look her in the eye; his hands kept fiddling with his MP3 player, unable to keep still. He swallowed so hard that she could _hear_ it. “Still am.”

Their eyes met for the briefest moment, and Rise felt this weird _fluttering_ thing in her stomach. She focused her gaze back on his hands, the way he was twisting the little stick of MP3 player around like it was some kind of wet rag. “You mean Risette,” she heard herself saying, like she was outside of her own body, like she was watching her shadow say it. “You’re a big fan of Risette.” Had that been why he’d been so excited to come study with her today? Was that really all he saw? Was that all he’d ever seen?

“ _No,_ ” he said emphatically, and the forcefulness of it made her look up in surprise. He had a strangely torn look on his face, like he was trying to choose among fifteen different options of what to say. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled finally, looking somewhat deflated. “It’s weird, right? You’re sitting right here and I’m listening to one of your songs. It’s weird.”

Yeah, it _was_ weird. But what was she supposed to say? She chewed lightly on her bottom lip, considering. “It’s not _that_ weird. A _little_ weird. The right amount of weird for you.”

The tenseness in the air between them broke and shattered like glass. “Oh, _great,_ it’s good to know my weirdness is par for the course,” Yosuke said, rolling his eyes emphatically. He put his hands on his headphones, making the motion to settle them back over his ears.

She wasn’t sure why, but her hand snapped out to grab hold of Yosuke’s arm, stopping it in place. She gripped the fabric of his uniform jacket tightly, bunching it up between her fingers. She wasn’t _done_ yet. “You can just listen to _me_ , you know,” she blurted out, and she regretted it as soon as the words came from her mouth. What did that even mean?

Yosuke opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t actually. Just reached over with his other hand and brushed his fingers lightly over hers. Her grip on his jacket loosened at his touch, and for the first time all afternoon, she was _glad_ that Souji-senpai wasn’t here.

To the sound of soft rain on the library windows (and, faintly, the second single from Risette’s third album), Rise’s lips quickly brushed Yosuke’s cheek. She was the faster one in the real world, after all.  



End file.
